


Examination

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott, Newsies (1992)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 06:51:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17218997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Dr. Nan wanted to examine the boy’s remaining eye, but his curly-haired friend wasn’t finished asking questions. Crossover between Newsies and Jo’s Boys, wherein Nan goes to work at the newsboys' lodging house.





	Examination

Dr. Nan wanted to examine the boy’s remaining eye, but his curly-haired friend wasn’t finished asking questions. At first Nan had assumed that the ceaseless queries were simply the product of an inquisitive temperament, but slowly she came to suspect that there was an ulterior motive behind them. This was confirmed when Nan leaned in towards her patient, and the curly-haired boy leapt in with an enthusiastic: “So what’s it like, living out in um… where’d you say it was? It’s different than here, I bet.”

Scolding words sat upon the tip of Nan’s tongue, but she saw the placating way that the curly-haired boy placed his hand on his friend’s arm, and she bit them back. She took a deep breath, and forced her shoulders to relax. She had been working hard over the years to develop a soothing manner with her patients, but it was difficult, for she was by nature one endowed with brisk sensibility, and a desire to get straight down to the bones of any matter (sometimes quite literally).

“There are much fewer people in Concord,” Nan said absently. “The air and the environment are excellent. I don’t suppose you’ve been outside of New York?” As she spoke, she wiped down the instruments that she would be using in her examination, keeping them in plain view so that the boys could see that she did not plan to subject them to anything sharp or dangerous. “Do you have names?” she asked, in her very calmest voice.

“Mush!” said one.

“Kid Blink,” said the other, much more warily than the first. The name was… not entirely surprising. Nan had looked over an amiable young lad called Crutchy just hours before. The newsboys’ lodging house, it seemed, offered a treasure trove of interesting ailments, and if any were not immediately physically apparent, Nan guessed that just from listening to names she might find some hints.

“Well, Mr. Blink, if you would just let me have a look at your eye…”

Back home, on the day before she headed out to New York, Nan’s friends at Plumfield had held a great going away party, where they had toasted to her health with Mother Bhaer’s homemade root beer, and hailed her as their “intrepid doctoress”. Jokes had flown, about how she could do as she pleased and learn all that she had left to know in New York’s orphanages and poor houses, with no need to worry about her mistakes. No amount of genuine good will towards these people, who had been her family since childhood, had been enough to keep Nan from bristling inwardly; what misstep had she ever taken to lead them to believe she might be anything other than a great success?

She had not counted on charity cases, such as the one before her, doubting her the same way that people back home were inclined to do. She’d thought they might be grateful to receive care, but when she once again moved in towards Kid Blink, he still backed away.

“It’s like this,” Kid Blink said, not unkindly. “The left eye ain’t a fit sight for a lady, and I need the other one to see.”

“You can look at my eyes if you want,” Mush offered. He even got up to come closer, but Kid Blink shook his head. If he saw Nan as a threat, he certainly wasn’t going to send his friend into her clutches.

“She can see ‘em just fine where she is,” Blink admonished. Mush gave her an apologetic sort of shrug, but sat back down. Nan didn’t suppose that she would be making any headway.

“You do realize,” Nan tried, in a last ditch effort, “that some conditions can spread from one eye to the other. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to lose your vision to something that could be easily prevented.”

The boy appeared to think it over.

“I don’t think accidents can spread like that,” Mush piped up. “Unless you'se worried about it happening again.”

Abruptly, Kid Blink stood up. “Mush knows what he’s talking about,” he said. “It ain’t happening again.”

Nan stood up too. She might have been tempted to press the matter, if not for the fact that somewhere else on the lodging house, a couple of younger boys were calling her. Their friend was doing a headstand, and they were very amused at the prospect of having a doctor present, incase he should break his neck. What could Nan do in this case, except rush in to avert disaster?

————-  
By late afternoon, Nan was still at the Newsboys’ Lodging House. It was true that she had come to see a specific patient, and she meant to get to him at the first opportunity, but to the other boys she was a novelty, and they seemed determined to make a show of all their bumps, bruises, and ailments, both great and small.

Nan was not a stranger to orphans, or to boys. There had been plenty of both at Plumfield. The difference was that growing up, even the most destitute of them had been dressed up nicely and presented to her as comrades and peers. Humble beginnings could be forgotten if one was good enough, except in cases when the orphaned children grew up, and expressed a desire to marry into the family for real.

What would Mother Bhaer think of the spectacle that was the newsies? Nan guessed that she would be taken in, but she also found herself remembering certain throwaway comments made around Plumfield, long ago assertions that Billy and Dick’s eventual deaths had been a blessing, the way that Dan had been Mother Bhaer’s indisputable favorite, mixed uncomfortably with the rumor Josie had started, that he’d been exiled for being a threat to Bess’ purity. Nat had his Daisy now, but having spent half his life proving to Mrs. Meg that he was worthy of her daughter, he lived in a state of anxiety that he might one day misstep, and bring every question about his past and his lineage back to the forefront.

At Plumfield, a life of usefulness and productivity had been at the root of every teaching. Poverty was not a thing to be looked down upon; the professor had been poor and the March family had been poor. When it came down to it, though, it was a sort of genteel poverty that was very different from what the Manhattan newsboys faced. Nan did not doubt that her friends back home would see these children and envision some sort of a wholesome change of circumstances for them, but even if that was to happen, there was no telling what their place in the world would be, and who would still find them lacking no matter what they did.

Nan was finally making her way up to the infirmary, when a tug on her sleeve stopped her. It was Mush, the boy from earlier. A smile played at the edge of her mouth.

“Is it another friend of yours up there?” Nan asked.

“Yeah.”

“And let me guess… He’s afraid of doctors too, and you’re here to ask me more about my life up north, and just how it is I came to be in New York.”

Mush cocked his head to the side, like he was thinking it over. Physically, he bore an uncanny resemblance to poor, wild Dan. He was just as solidly built, and matched Dan in both his skin tone and his profusion of shaggy curls. His expression was far more open and guileless than anything Nan had ever seen from her childhood friend, but other than that, they looked as if they could be brothers.

“I don’t know that Jack’s afraid of doctors,” Mush said. “I guess he ain’t. I never saw Jack afraid of anything.”

“But your other friend is,” Nan pointed out.

“Maybe you just didn’t ask him right, about his eye. You don’t have to be afraid of something to not want people to do it.”

Nan considered this. She couldn’t imagine any reason other than fear to refuse a possibly beneficial medical examination, but she had to admit to herself that there might not be many benefits to Kid Blink in submitting to something he didn’t want to do for the sake of her interest and curiosity. Another memory flashed, unbidden, of a long ago day when Dick’s nearly saintly patience had run out, and he’s declared that he wouldn’t let another doctor poke and prod him unless they meant to do something for his condition.

Mush was still looking at her. “Is there something else you need to ask me?” Nan asked, as patiently as he could.

“Well you’re a lady, and you’re a doctor…” Mush started.

Nan wasn’t sure she liked where this conversation was going, but she nodded anyway.

“Does that mean a guy can be a nurse?”

A quick, surprised laugh escaped Nan’s throat. Though she regretted the redness it made rise in Mush’s cheeks, she pressed forward anyway. “Are you asking on behalf of yourself, or someone else?”

“I don’t know. Me I guess.”

“Can you follow instructions?” An idea was beginning in Nan’s mind, one that was silly and impulsive, but interesting nonetheless

.  
“Yeah,” Mush said. “And I don’t faint when I sees blood. I have a friend who does that every time.”

“Come one then,” Nan said, gesturing for Mush to follow her upstairs. Maybe she would regret this later, and maybe this new helper would be more trouble than he was worth, but that was a risk that Nan was willing to take. The more she thought about it, the more having a guide to the newsies and their ways seemed like a worthwhile experiment.


End file.
